We plan to post the June 2005 Internet monthly update to our six monthly update web sites on Tuesday, May 31st.
The disk update will be processed Tuesday, May 31st and the disks will be shipped on that day. You should have the disk update by Thursday, June 2nd.
We are making changes to the rules regarding subscriber listings at our term4sale.com web site. In the past each Compulife subscriber has been is entitled to one free listing at www.term4sale.com. The new rules will mean that you may be eligible for two or three free listings, depending upon the type of subscription that you have.
Here are the new listing rules based upon the subscription type:
1. Term4Sale - Agent edition
An individual subscribing to the lowest cost version of Compulife will continue to be entitled to one free listing at www.term4sale.com. There is no change for Term4Sale subscribers.
2. Personal Use subscription
An individual agent subscribing to the full version of the Compulife Quotation System will now be entitled to have two free listings at www.term4sale.com.
3. Agency Use subscription (Standard License)
Agency subscribers are now entitled to have up to three free listings at www.term4sale.com. There will still be the requirement that a single individual be listed as the contact person for the agency.
Free listings that are within a local phone call of the agent will be treated as "Home" zip codes. Home zip codes are given priority over those purchasing additional zip code listings. Home zip code rules are unchanged and explained in detail at the www.term4sale.com web site following the lists of three agents which are provided to consumers.
If you are a personal use or agency subscriber, and already have one free listing at www.term4sale.com, please send Diane an e-mail at dwelch@compulife.com indicating which other zip codes you would like to add. Alternately, you can give Diane a call at 800-798-3488 but Diane is likely to be busy with these requests during May. If you call don't be surprised if she needs to make a note of your request and call you back later with the availability of the codes that you want; e-mail would be preferable. Please keep in mind that new listings requested during May will be posted on June 1st.
Compulife is introducing new pricing and minimum threshold rules for those buying comparison software in bulk.
Most important, there will be a lower threshold to qualify for custom hosting. Custom hosting means that Compulife will cut the group of companies in our software to only those companies that the agency wants in the software. The group of companies will be locked so that the sub-users getting the agency's custom hosted updates cannot reverse the process.
Please note that the bulk purchase discounts listed below, are ONLY available to those who are agency subscribers (standard license).
Term4Sale - Agent Edition
An agency subscriber can now purchase 10 copies of Term4Sale Agent Edition for only $500 (custom hosting is NOT available).
An agency subscriber can purchase 20 copies of Term4Sale Agent Edition for $990 and Compulife will "custom host" the monthly updates. Additional copies of the Term4Sale - Agent Edition are available at $49.50 per unit.
Personal Use - Edition
An agency subscriber can purchase 10 copies of the full Compulife program, personal use edition, for $990 (custom hosting is NOT available).
An agency subscriber can purchase 15 copies of the full Compulife program, personal use edition, for $1,485 and have the software "custom hosted" for their agents.
Additional copies of the Personal Use software are available at $99 per year. Please call for further discounts on volumes of 50 or more.
Compulife's Internet Engine is now available for $995 per year. The engine is available to subscribers who have an agency (standard) license with Compulife. If that agency is purchasing the personal use edition of Compulife in bulk (NOT the Term4Sale Agent Edition), the engine can be purchased for an additional $500 per year.
For example, if the agency buys 10 copies of Compulife's Personal Use Edition, for $990, then the engine brings the total price to $1,490.
If an agency wants custom hosting of the Personal Use software, it must buy the minimum of 15 copies of Compulife's Personal Use Edition for $1,485. If it does, the Internet engine can be added for $500 bringing the total cost to $1,985.
We believe that the vast majority of our subscribers, who simply want term quotes added to their internet web site, are much better advised to obtain the use of the Compulife Internet Engine through one of our Authorized Web Providers. Apart from the ease and speed of initial implementation, maintenance is a non-issue because the Web Providers assume the responsibility of obtaining Compulife rate updates and putting them on their internet servers. Those who purchase the Internet Engine directly, to use on their own servers, must make certain that Compulife rate updates are periodically transferred to their servers.
One of the advantages to those purchasing the Internet Engine is that they then have the same ability as Compulife's Authorized web providers, which is to be able to hook up the engine for anyone else's web site. Using the engine for other peoples' web sites is available at NO ADDITIONAL COST; the only stipulation is that the person or entity is a Compulife subscriber.
For example, if you are a General Agency and you want to provide term quotes for your agents web sites, and you want to do that as part of your value added services to those agencies, you can do so at NO CHARGE providing the agent is a subscriber to Compulife. When you combine that NO CHARGE opportunity, with the fact that an agency can buy Compulife for its agents for as little as $99 per year, we can only wonder why more agencies are not taking advantage of the opportunity to provide these valuable tools to their agents.
There remains a minority of Compulife subscribers who still get disk updates rather than Internet updates.
During April Compulife removed the opportunity for NEW subscribers to purchase updates on disks. The only disks we are now shipping are those to existing subscribers who still get their updates by disks.
However, effective July 1, 2005, EXISTING customers will be faced with higher prices and new conditions when they renew their subscription for updates on disks. If you are getting disk updates, and want to hold off on switching to updates by Internet, you need to read this carefully.
First, renewal prices for disks will increase. To ensure that all disk update customers stop receiving disk updates after December 2006, all disk update customers renewing after July 1, 2005 will be invoiced for the total number of months left to December 2006. This will ensure that each disk subscription is paid to the end of 2006. It will not be renewed past that point as a disk subscription.
From July 1, 2005 forward, personal use disk subscription renewals will be priced at $29 per month, payable in a lump sum to the end of December 2006.
Agency use disk subscriptions will be $39 per month, payable in a lump sum in advance to the end of December 2006.
VERY IMPORTANT: The absolute last date anyone will be able to obtain a monthly update by disk will be December 2006. From January 2007 and forward, ALL Compulife subscribers will need to receive updates by Internet. If you are not connected to the Internet by January 2007, you will no longer be able to get Compulife updates.
PAY ATTENTION TO THIS!
If you act before July 1, 2005, the cost of your renewal will be based upon the total number of months left times the average cost per month based upon the current annual fees of:
Personal Use - $25 per month (rather than $29)
Agency Use - $33.25 per month (rather than $39)
If you wait until AFTER July 1, 2005 to renew disk updates, you will pay the higher prices.
Work is virtually completed on the new multiple decimal storage system. During April, I have been quite busy with the testing and re-entry of products. We intend to roll out the new feature in midmonth updates in May. Therefore, those using the Internet Engine will need to obtain and implement that in May.
As we have previously explained, a small but increasing number of companies are quoting from rate tables that have fractional pennies. This is particularly true for U/L - no lapse policies. To address this we have made a change to our database which allows us to increase the number of decimal places from two decimals to six decimals. Because this is done ONLY for products that need it, the system's total disk space requirement will remain unchanged for the vast majority of products in the system.
Previously our practice was to take products that have fractional pennies in their rates per thousand and round the rates up to the next whole cent. This made our quotes fractionally higher than they should be.
IMPORTANT: Once again, this change requires a New Internet Engine for those who use the Internet engine.
This change will require a minor data conversion which will necessitate a change to the data structure. This means that the new data is NOT compatible with old data. While this will not be a problem for customers who subscribe to our software, because the new program and data will be introduced at the same time, it does create a problem for those who use the internet engine.
Therefore, if you are using Compulife's Internet engine, you will need to be ready to replace the engine with the new engine once the new data has been introduced. Due to the significance of the changeover, and the fact that everything will need to be implemented and tested before release, we are planning to make this change in May.
If there is anyone out there, who uses Compulife's Internet engine, and has not kept their subscription to that engine current, the new data files which we will introduce in May 2005 will NOT WORK accurately with the existing engine. You will need to upgrade the engine in order to continue.
Therefore, if you are a current engine user it would be a good idea to make a note to contact Compulife to ensure you get an updated version of the engine. If you are NOT a current engine user, but still using the engine, then you should be aware that May's midmonth updates will create errors in your quotes.
IMPORTANT: This Data Modification IS NOT AVAILABLE in DOS
If a product requires only two decimal storage, then the DOS program will still be able to quote it. However, if the multiple decimal data storage option has been implemented for a product, the DOS version will skip over that product and the product will NOT be quoted.
We apologize for the delays in getting a web page posted, which will post subscriber comments regarding our new concept for U/L quoting. April was another month where we lost time due to family situations (my wife's mother passed away in Canada). Hopefully May let's us get back on track.
Here is the run down on our ideas to enhance U/L quotes in Compulife.
First, Compulife is not planning to add U/L comparisons to our software. We already have the U/L comparisons that we want to have. You will find those products in the comparison category called
NOTE: Term4Sale Agent Edition customers do NOT have this category.
Providing that a U/L product has a fully guaranteed premium that will not lapse before age 100 (some guarantee premium and face amount longer), the product can be included in that category. As always is the case, we want to include every product that we can.
The NEW PROPOSAL that I talked about last month adds nothing new to that comparison within the Compulife program.
The PROPOSED NEW feature we would like to add, is a "link" or a "connection" between the Compulife program and the Home Office software provided by the life companies. Here is how I envision the function working:
From the comparison results you would be able to double left click on a specific U/L product which would cause the "Display Single Product" window to appear. (just as it does now)
Next, if the company has worked with Compulife in order to facilitate the new feature that we are PROPOSING, there would be a NEW BUTTON on the single product display window. Currently you have a button called "Rate Class". Imagine a NEW button just to the left of it called "Illustrate". If you were to click on this imaginary new "Illustrate" button our software would then connect you to the Home Office software, passing into the Home Office software the client's information and displaying a genuine Home Office illustration for the exact same product with no lapse option that you were looking at in Compulife.
Again, this is NOT a new comparison feature. This would be a proposed new interface between our software and the company software. It would make it much easier to use the company software to generate a genuine life company illustration for the product you saw in Compulife.
We want to thank those subscribers who have been good enough to try the modifications that we have made to the Windows program in order to produce .TXT files. A number of subscribers have used the DOS program to produce those files and because we are eliminating DOS in the near future, we wanted to make sure we weren't taking away capabilities DOS allows but not windows.
Given the completion of that work, we are now confident that the Windows program is able to do ALL things which the DOS program was able to do and, of course, the Windows version is able to do MUCH MORE than the DOS program was ever capable of doing.
Therefore, this is a LAST CALL for subscribers to advise us if there are things that they use the DOS program for, which they can't use the Windows program to do. Effective with the beginning of the 3rd quarter (July Update) we will be deleting the DOS program from our updates. The way it will work is that when you double click on the DOS icon to run the DOS program, it will simply start the windows software. That will no doubt provoke a reaction from those who don't read our bulletins but once we have worked through transition problems arising from that unhappy experience (for some), we will permanently say good-bye to the DOS software.
For those who update by Internet, Compulife has gone to great lengths to provide you with redundancy in our web sites. Our main web site is:
However, we keep two other completely separate web sites, on two completely different servers, at:
Whatever we update to compulife.com, we are also updating to compulife.us and to compulife.cc. If one web site goes down, for whatever reason, either of the other two are ready to serve you. That includes both monthly and mid-month updates.
For those doing monthly updates by Internet, we rely on three other web sites to supply monthly updates. These are automatically checked and used by our automatic Internet update software.
For those receiving updates by disks, you are responsible to return those disks each month. Not returning disks can lead to the termination of your update service. For those not wanting to return disks there are two ways to eliminate the problem.
1. Switch to obtaining monthly updates by Internet.
Not only will you eliminate the expense and hassle of returning disks, you will save $100 per year in subscription fees.
To switch to Internet monthly updates, go to our web page www.compulife.com and select the last menu choice "Forms, applications, instruction tutorials, etc." Under the section "License Agreements" you will need to select and complete a new License Agreement for the type of license you have. After you have printed the new agreement, please read it, especially the part where you agree that you have successfully downloaded and processed our "mid-month updates". If you haven't done that before, call us and we'll be happy to step you through the procedure. It's easy.
2. Disk Purchase Program
The other way to avoid returning the disks and the disk box each month is to pre-purchase them for $21 per year ($1.75 per month). Once you do that you can keep them for future reference, throw them away or return them for a credit (once each year) when you are invoiced for the following year. $21 costs you less than mailing back disks each month.